Just a comment here elaborating a point made by Ed Barkmeyer: (01)
[EB] >> Murray Burke once said he expected the problem of multiple reference
ontologies for the same subject matter to be rare. The thinking was that
ontologies are difficult to build and knowledge engineers are lazy, so they
will reuse something they can find rather than roll their own. I don't
disagree with that rationale, but I do think there are other motivations for
wilful ignorance and deliberate parallel development. (In other engineering
trades, for example, they have patents.) (02)
[PC] My own observations suggest that the "laziness" factor, as far as
ontologies goes, often works in the direction of ontologists building their
own with no reference to existing ontologies - because existing foundation
ontologies (e.g. Cyc and SUMO) are sufficiently complex that it just seems
easier to ignore them and work at the domain level alone. The problem of
learning time for foundation ontologies is exacerbated by the absence of
publicly available example applications demonstrating the usefulness of
those ontologies, reducing the motivation to take the time to learn how to
use them. So I agree with Ed's initial point: (03)
[EB] >> I would only point out that this utopian result [two trading
programs automatically interpreting each other's data accurately] is only
possible when the would-be buyer and the would-be seller mark up their
requirements resp. offerings with the same ontology, or with two ontologies
that reference a common ontology in such a way as to enable the match up. (04)
[PC] I am an optimist in believing that the current situation is temporary,
that some Foundation Ontology will become widely used and serve as a de
facto standard of meaning that permits accurate automatic interpretation of
data. But it appears to me that unless some substantial effort is made to
develop a community that will use such a common foundation ontology is
directly funded, the gradual adoption of a common FO can take quite a long
time, with a large cost in the interim due to lost efficiency, lost
opportunities for collaborative development of effective multiagent systems,
and money wasted on less efficient methods for addressing the problem of
*accurate* semantic interoperability. Of course, lots of useful things can
be done without a common FO, but accurate general semantic interoperability
- of the kind that will let users do trading without special-purpose
programs - isn't one of them. (05)
Pat (06)
Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx (07)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ed Barkmeyer
> Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 6:14 PM
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Can Syntax become Semantic ?
>
> Jim Rhyne wrote:
> > A trading system application acts as a third party broker between the
> buyer and seller. Both buyer and seller register with the trading
> system and the trading system matches goods offered with buyer requests
> for goods. The match could involve an auction (as eBay does) or a
> direct trade or purchase.
> >
> > The semantic web eliminates the trading system. Assume that a seller
> creates some information on the web that is annotated with RDF. The
> buyer uses a search service (perhaps implemented with SPARQL) to search
> the web. This search service is general in nature (like Google) and is
> provided by many sites on the web, or it may be a personal
> implementation provided by the buyer or seller. The RDF provides a
> standard way for sellers to describe their offerings without
> interfering with the sellers ability to create a personal and pleasing
> web experience. It also standardizes the way buyers can frame a query.
> >
>
> I would only point out that this utopian result is only possible when
> the would-be buyer and the would-be seller mark up their requirements
> resp. offerings with the same ontology, or with two ontologies that
> reference a common ontology in such a way as to enable the match up.
> The further possible solution is that some third party has created an
> ontology that links the terms in the two ontologies with appropriate
> sameAs and subsumption relationships, AND the buyer's tooling is
> somehow
> smart enough to find that linking ontology.
>
> There have been many papers on the technologies for resolving the
> multiple reference ontologies problem. I particularly remember an
> overview paper by Uschold and Gruninger, (which I can't find, my
> personal knowledge organization system being hopelessly impaired :-( ).
>
> Murray Burke once said he expected the problem of multiple reference
> ontologies for the same subject matter to be rare. The thinking was
> that ontologies are difficult to build and knowledge engineers are lazy,
> so they will reuse something they can find rather than roll their own.
> I don't disagree with that rationale, but I do think there are other
> motivations for wilful ignorance and deliberate parallel development.
> (In other engineering trades, for example, they have patents.)
>
> -Ed
>
> --
> Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
> National Institute of Standards & Technology
> Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
> 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
> Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694
>
>
>
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